*Cuts in*
-Very well from her days as a student at Carthage College and now as a highly
regarded voice teacher there on the faculty, but now wearing a different hat and that’s
really what prompts this visit to the morning show. Sarah is the executive director of the
Kenosha symphony orchestra and has been working very, very hard with the able
assistance of some student interns to create some very, very exciting new events for
the Kenosha symphony as they are about to usher in a new season. These are exciting
times for the Kenosha Symphony and it’s great to have this opportunity to take Sarah
into the studios. The last time we talked, actually, was not about anything regarding
Carthage or the Symphony- that appointment hadn’t yet probably occurred but way
back in January was it…?
Yeah
Sarah had one of the lead roles in the production of the Lakeside Players at the Rhode
Opera House of the intriguing and delightful musical Avenue Q, so we had Sarah in the
studios at that time along with Joe Cardamone, the directorJoe Cardamone and Jack Lambert.
Right, we had a great conversation. But anyway today it is all about the Kenosha
Symphony Orchestra and some exciting events coming up in the near future in
anticipation of the opening night of yet another Kenosha Symphony season on the 18th
of October so, Sarah Gorke, we welcome you back to the morning show
Thank you for having me back.
First of all, tell our listeners to whatever extent you’re comfortable how it is that you
have this new position. Is it something you were going after? In what way does this
involve a sort of a natural progression to you versus kind of a dramatic stepping away
from other things you’ve done? Fill us in on how this connection was made.
Yes that’s a fair question. As you mentioned I am an adjunct professor of voice at
Carthage College, but I am also the music deptartment’s ensemble tour manager which
means I plan and implement and execute mainly domestic tours for the music
ensembles and through that job I sort of found a passion and a heart for crossing things
off a to do list and sort of figuring out a puzzle that would involve an actual production of
sorts. And so with that I sort of was looking for something more, something that I could
expand upon that resource and sort of find something within the area that could maybe
cultivate that talent that I felt like I was really- it was sort of buried somewhere deep in
my musician side that I actually had this sort of linear thought process as well and I just
happened to find out basically about the same time that I was looking for something
different, I found that this position at the Symphony was open and on a lark, basically, I
gathered my resume, I compiled my CV, and I submitted my information to the Kenosha
Symphony, just as an attempt to see if it was even something I could even explore. I
was lucky enough to secure an interview and went through the interview process with at
that time the President of the Board of Directors and the Vice President and it turned out
that they were excited about what I had to offer and what my vision for the symphony
itself was and so I’ve been in the position now since the middle of March.
Wow. So juggling a couple of different things
Yeah
That must be an interesting challenge to, in a sense, have your heart in several different
places. What has that felt like?
Well Greg, as you know, you are also a master juggler of sorts and so for me it’s sort of
refreshing. I really can’t imagine doing the same thing day in and day out and so I’m
very thankful that I still get to fulfill the side of my music career in the form of teaching, in
the form of dabbling with some freelance opportunities to sing and to perform, but then
to also have an opportunity like the tour manager position and the executive director
position. The executive director position for the Symphony is only a part time position
and so I am very thankful that Carthage is flexible enough that I can make everything
work and so far it’s been an exciting ride and an exciting journey. We’ll see how long
that stamina lasts.
Going into this, what did you sort of anticipate this would be in terms of the position and
its responsibilities and [what] it would feel like versus what, in fact, it is? Have there
been surprises for you thus far?
Yeah, I don’t think anyone quite knew what this position would entail. The Symphony
itself had dabbled with an executive director position, or a general manager position,
over the course of its 75 year tenure, but this is the first time in a while that had been
reinstated and the Symphony itself was in a very different position at that point than it
had been even, say, 10 years prior and so I think I went into the position knowing that I
didn’t really quite know what it would be. I’m not actually a risk taker so I’m surprised
that I was excited to take that risk - a calculated risk, nonetheless. But I think what I’ve
come to find that’s different than what I anticipated is that it actually takes way more
creativity than I did anticipate because there were so many opportunities to capitalize
upon given that it is our 75th anniversary season, given the opportunity to get ourselves
into the community a little bit more, and to encourage the community to come back or to
explore us for the first time. And so for me, that has been the most exciting opportunity
is to actually use my creative skills and to find ways to bring excitement back into the
community for the symphony itself
So it wasn’t just pushing numbers and alphabetizing files andThere is that, too, absolutely
But that isn’t all it is.
Exactly, and I guess I did anticipate that being the majority of the experience as an
executive director, but it’s so much more than that.
What was your connection to the Kenosha symphony ahead of even applying for this
position? I’m pretty sure that you’ve done at least a little bit of singing with them.
I have. When I was actually a senior at Carthage I participated in their Youth Concerto
competition and I was co-winner with a tubaist at the time, so I had an opportunity to
perform at their Youth Concert in, I believe it was the year 2000. But then also once I
moved back to Kenosha after getting my masters in Chicago I had an opportunity to
perform with them in an ensemble role with Musici Amici once or twice and with another
ensemble. So I was very familiar with the organization itself but admittedly, I’ve never
found a way to really carve out time to just go as a patron. That’s something that I feel a
little regretful about but excited to see the new exciting works that we have planned for
this season to see who else will come out of the woodwork.
Right. Well and of course in a sense that speaks to one of your challenges which is to
reach out to people who, in a sense, are like yourself, young professionals for whom the
Symphony in one way or another - not for you entirely off your radar but in a sense not
sort of in the mix of your life the way now you sort of wish it had been.
Absolutely, and as a young professional like you mentioned…well, not even young or
old or as any professional or any person, it takes a lot to sort of get us off the couch at
the end of a busy work week and from what I have found, especially in the classical
world, there’s such a stereotype that classical music is boring or unrelatable or just for
the elite of the elite, and a little bit more about me, I actually grew up in a small town in
central Wisconsin and I showed cows at the fair, so growing up I thought what does
classical music mean to me? That has nothing to do with my life. But I’ve come to an
understanding, of course, over my tenure that classical music is for everybody and
classical music can be fun and classical music is everywhere. You watch any
commercial, any movie, and you’re surrounded by that classical music and engaged in
it. What we have to do as a symphony is not just make it about the piece itself, but the
event surrounding it, the understanding of the pertinence of the work and the excitement
that the work itself can invoke within us all.
So, tell us your sense of where the symphony was/is as you took over the reins. I can
tell that you’ve done some study of this ensemble’s long history…
Yeah
…With of course particular concern and attention to where it has been more recently.
What is your take on the state of the Symphony at the moment?
I think with any organization that has been around for 75 years much like we have, any
relationship that lasts 75 years is bound to have ups and downs and bound to have
good and bad and bound to have stories that have been shared through the community
itself. What I appreciate the most about those stories that are shared is that the
community still very much cares for us and about us. Despite those ups and admitted
downs, I think that no one wants to see the Symphony go away. I think that’s a unique
challenge because in a community like Kenosha that’s big enough to sustain an
orchestra for 75 years, it’s also a small enough town where people do talk and word
does get spread and people are easily burned out by an organization and for something
for 75 years, it takes a lot to reinvent that, or revitalize, and to show something new and
that’s really what I’ve come to understand is that people are looking for it not just to be a
concert, but looking at it from a community perspective, what can we give back to the
community and that’s really something that I’m so excited to explore a little bit further.
The Symphony itself was established in 1940 and it was actually created through the
Department of Recreation through the city of Kenosha, so from our very inception it was
very community focused and very community oriented and I think somewhere along the
way we sort of lost track of that. Not that we ever gave up on it, not that we ever lost
specific focus on it but I think we really lost track of how important the community
actually is to our very existence.
My recollections, as someone who has been part of it, is I vividly remember when a
decision was made for probably some relatively valid reasons to take the Symphony
into more kind of a semi-professional direction in terms of trying to elevate the quality of
the music making, but I remember the discussion which occurred at the time about the
risks of that and the danger of that, of having a stage full of musicians many of whom
would be complete strangers to the audience, not people, necessarily, that you knew.
Not that there weren’t any people from Kenosha still in the orchestra, but a rather
dramatic move was made away from an orchestra really almost completely populated
by musicians from here to look elsewhere. And of course you end up, then, with
musicians very able, but in a sense with less of a connection to the community from
which the orchestra originally sprung. It really presents a tricky picture which, probably,
in the ensuing years, has been handled better at some points than it was at others.
Does that sound like a good summary?
Absolutely, and it’s a discussion that is still being had and a question I get very often,
just even in my short amount of time here, what that means. What does a professional
orchestra mean? What does it mean when the majority of our members don’t live in
Kenosha itself? But like any business, whenever someone comes into your city, and
spends an amount of time there, we are thankful for that in the sense that our musicians
live very close to Kenosha. They may be living in bordering cities, but it’s not that they
never come to Kenosha; it’s not that they don’t offer their patronage to the businesses in
Kenosha. When they’re in rehearsals many of them stay in hotels over night because
our rehearsal process is a very expedited process, about a week before the concert
itself. They dine at our local restaurants, they go shopping downtown; they are just as
valid of patrons in the city of Kenosha as anyone else. We very much encourage their
patronage while they’re here and are thankful that they are surrounding but want to give
their time to Kenosha specifically.
Reminds me too of approximately the same time that move was made to have more
musicians from out of town that’s also the first time the Kenosha Symphony hired a
conductor from out of town.
Yeah.
That first conductor I’m thinking of, Thomas Elefant, lived in Montana.
Right.
And of course, then there’ve been other conductors also from sometimes far, far away
which has also presented challenges although I think some of those conductors did an
admirable job of trying to foster a close connection with this community even if they
didn’t live anywhere near here. Of course the Symphony’s current conductor is
somebody who is actually very close by and he seems to have gone out of his way to
take this part of the responsibility seriously. Tell our listeners about the conductor of the
Symphony and your relationship to him.
Our conductor/music director’s name is Maestro Robert G. Hasty, and he teaches at
Northwestern University and lives in Evanston. My relationship with him has really been
hit off from the start. We have a really great rapport. He has just, in my eyes, gone
above and beyond in terms of that community outreach, finding ways to get up to
Kenosha. For those of you that were in attendance on Saturday July 19 th you saw him
leading our Flash Mob at the HarborMarket. So little opportunities like that, he finds a
way to make himself known. He bikes up from Evanston sometimes on his bicycle even,
and he really believes in the power and the importance of being not only the face of the
orchestra but a face within the community itself as well.
So, how do the two of you share responsibility in terms of planning events and helping
shape the season, and what is the relationship of the board to the two of you in terms of
making plans?
Anyone that’s familiar with nonprofits sort of knows the role of the board of directors and
the executive director and the music director is sort of a precarious and fine line, a
flexibility of understanding. But basically at the end of the day, Bob has the ultimate say
in the music for the season, but I have some goals within that season, so, for example,
involving more community members to participate within the music making itself,
whether it be local choirs, or local guest artists, whether it be tributes to the city itself or
to our history, and so I presented him with these concepts for each one of our concerts
throughout the season. We met actually a Mexican restaurant downtown in Illinois
between Evanston and Kenosha, and we spent about 3 and a half hours just sorting
through the potential of the season, and working together to see what we felt could be
the most powerful and poignant impact within the music making and within the
community understanding of that music to have our 75th season in particular be very
important.
So, we have a couple of events ahead of the season itself, which I know you’re excited
to talk about, and one of them involves something that sounds so intriguing, on the 26th
of July, you’re calling it an Instrument Petting Zoo.
Yes! So, the Instrument Petting Zoo will be taking place at the HarborMarket on
Saturday from 9am until 2pm. The concept of this is basically we encourage guests of
all ages – children of all ages, I’ll say – to touch the instruments, to explore the
instruments, to take them apart, to put them together, to see the fine intricacies of these
instruments that are making these beautiful sounds up on the stage but in a sense we
feel very distant from at the same time. So it’s such an intimate experience to listen to a
concert, but such a distant experience to not really understand what’s going into that
music making. So we’re going to have “zookeepers” – basically our interns – and other
volunteers will be there showing how to put the instruments together and encouraging
people to- y’know, if they took band even for 5 months in 5th grade, and they always
thought, “Gosh, I wonder if I could play that trumpet again” or “I wonder if I could even
make a sound on a clarinet”, come and try! Come and see. Kids that like to make noise,
come and play on our drums and explore the instruments and just really see up close
and personal what all goes into the music that you’re hearing at a symphony
performance.
So where will that be?
That will be at the HarborMarket, Downtown Kenosha, and we haven’t been assigned
our booth yet, but go up and down the strip and you’ll find us. We’ll be the ones making
the most noise, I think.
And then, I know that you are very, very hard at work on an enormous event which
comes up on the 22nd of August and this is exciting, as you put together a gala to
celebrate the Orchestra’s 75th Anniversary.
Yes. We’re so thankful to the beautifully renovated Kenosha Country Club for offering
their space to us for the evening. The event will be taking place from 6pm to 9:30pm on
August 22nd and we are going to have live entertainment. Many members of our
symphony will be performing music, both as a quartet and a quintet throughout the
evening. We have a diamond that has been donated by Herbert’s Jeweler’s that we will
be auctioning off. You have a chance to win a real, live diamond. We have wonderful
raffle prizes such as main floor tickets to any Lyric Opera performance. We have
Chicago Architecture tours that have been donated; we have Racine Theater Guild
tickets, Milwaukee Ballet, Milwaukee Bucks- all of that is able to be won at the event
itself. We will be having heavy hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar, and basically it’s a
chance for us to thank our patrons for the past 75 years, to just gather for one evening
and celebrate the history of the symphony and look towards the future of the symphony
as well. Tickets are $40 per person before August 1st and $50 after August 1st. You can
access tickets very easily if you go to our newly renovated website, which is
www.kenoshasymphony.org, and our homepage has a button right there to access
tickets for the Gala night itself. Our tag line is, Guests are encouraged to dress classy
and leave happy. It’s a chance for everyone to dress up a little bit and have a wonderful
night.
And that’s at the Kenosha Country Club?
It is, yes.
A beautiful place to have an event like that.
Yes, we’re very, very excited about it.
I know you’re also excited about the free concert which is scheduled for the 5 th of
September in Pennoyer Park.
Yes. So I created a 75th Anniversary Taskforce. I understood the potential of the 75 th
Anniversary and wanted to find a way to best capitalize upon that opportunity. So this
taskforce met and we sort of gathered our minds and found an idea with this free
concert to the public, to just, again, gain exposure and another way to say thank you to
the community that has so faithfully supported us over these past 75 years. So we
actually met with the mayor and proposed this idea and we’re very thankful that the city
supports this event. We’re hoping to make it an annual event, so we’re calling it the 1 st
Annual Shindig on the Shore. It will be an event that will feature pops style music. The
event will go from 6 to 9:30pm but the concert itself will go from 7 to about 8:30 and
we’re going to having vendors, and we’re working on getting a malt beverage permit, so
fingers crossed for that so there can be malt beverage available. [There will be]
concessions, a children’s play area and learning zone in addition to the concert itself.
We’re also very excited to share that the KUSD Summer Strings program will be joining
the Kenosha Symphony for a few pieces that evening, so it’s a chance for students
within the Summer Strings program to play side by side with professional musicians,
which is a really unique and really lovely opportunity. Also, at 8:30 there will be free
cake that we’ll be passing out and singing happy birthday to the symphony for our 75
years.
I like that too. September 5th at Pennoyer Park. And then, of course, the official season we’re not even into that yet. So, first of all, generally speaking, what has the typical
season of the Kenosha Symphony entailed in the last year or two?
In the last year or two we’ve gone to about 3 concerts per season: two classically
oriented programs and then a holiday pops with more contemporary music. This
season, in support of our 75 years, we have chosen to extend that to a four concert
series. Our season opens on October 18th with one of the absolute masterworks, which
is Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, which is a huge undertaking, but we’re very, very excited
about the event surrounding the evening, including the concert itself. The whole month,
basically, prior to the concert we’re working with the Kenosha Public Library, Kenosha
Community Media, RG Productions, and Carthage College to have a cultivation of
excitement and understanding of the piece itself, of Beethoven’s 9 th, and Beethoven’s
life, of the culture of the time. The Public Library will be holding listening parties to sort
of get an understanding of the piece itself. They will also be holding book discussions
about a book surrounding Beethoven. RG Productions, which is an old-time radio
company, will be producing a radio broadcast that actually surrounds a script that deals
with Wagner and Beethoven and how a very young Wagner wants to meet Beethoven,
and he goes on this pilgrimage to Beethoven, and Beethoven’s working on his final, 9th
Symphony, which is wonderfully tied in, of course. All those are very exciting. but the
really cool, in my opinion, documentary, “Following the Ninth” is going to be shown at
Carthage College in collaboration with Kenosha Community Media, and this
documentary showcases the impact of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony around the world, in
third world countries, in first world countries, and basically the premise is that music is
for everybody, both music making and music listening. It really shows how
encapsulating a music experience can be, and that all leads up then to the Kenosha
Symphony producing and performing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony on October 18th. We’re
so excited about our soloists and our guest choirs. Melissa Cardamone is our soprano
soloist and Melissa is a Kenosha resident. She has an amazing and expansive bio.
Allison Hull is a voice professor at Carthage and at UW-Parkside and she’s our alto for
the evening. We two males coming in from Chicago: Alan Taylor has performed with the
Kenosha Symphony before, and one of the most exciting new developments is that
members of the Carthage Choir will be joining another ensemble from the Chicago area
to be the guest choir for that evening, and we’re so excited about Carthage coming on
board, especially considering our new partnership that has been announced with
Carthage. We feel that this is a really exciting way to really blast off that partnership.
So that concert is on October 18th, Beethoven’s 9th symphony, one of the towering
masterworks of music history. Why don’t you sketch the rest of the season- at least,
what is known at this point, or maybe all the details already are in place.
We’re very excited and rapidly completely confirming and solidifying everything.
December 14th is a 3pm matinee and that will be our holiday pops concert. One of the
exciting things is we will be inviting adult choirs from the area, church choirs specifically,
to join us to sing the Hallelujah Chorus at the end of the evening, and so we’re excited
about bringing adult choirs in for that, again, giving them a chance to perform with the
Kenosha Symphony. There will be part of the Nutcracker Suite being performed that
evening, as you all will identify if you’ve ever seen Fantasia you’ll understand that music
very rapidly there, in addition to some other holiday favorites. That’s December 14th at
3pm at Reuther. Then, April 18th at 7:30pm is our concert entitled “Our Town. Your
KSO.” This concert is a way for us to sort of pay tribute to the music that was happening
in 1940, which was when the Kenosha Symphony itself was established. One of my
very late night insomniac moments came with [an] understanding that Aaron Copland
was producing music at the exact same time that the Kenosha Symphony was instated.
In 1940, actually, Aaron Copland’s work Our Town was premiered and so in an effort, of
course, to thank “Our Town”, our Kenosha community, we feel this is very exciting for us
to be able to perform “Our Town” by Aaron Copland, in addition to two pieces of his
from “The Tender Lands” and [we’re] very excited that the Tremper Chorale, directed by
Mrs. Polly Amborn, will be joining us as the guest choir for that evening. We will also be
performing Dvořák’s 9th Symphony as a tribute for that evening, so we’re very excited
about that night. And then our season finalizes on June 13 th, and that will be a popscentered concert. That will be at 7:30pm, and we’re very excited, actually, to travel to
University of Wisconsin – Parkside’s newly renovated and built Bedford Hall, which is so
beautiful. We’re very excited to try out that space and to go a little bit further North. That
will be pops-centered; we’re sort of welcoming in summer. The captions is “Summertime
and the Livin’ is Easy”, so we’ll have some Gershwin tunes and some movie music, like
from Pirates of the Caribbean, for example, that pay tribute to the warm weather we
hope we’ll be having by next June as well. And that will be our finale of our 75th Season.
I’m very excited, obviously, by that time to have announced our 76th Season and what
that will entail.
Terrific! That is a great, great lineup. One of the things we’ve not touched on too much
is the connection that you mentioned briefly between the Kenosha Symphony and
Carthage, a newly minted relationship. What can you tell us about that, about what that
relationship is?
Well, what I can tell you is that we’re so excited about it. I have for example, 4 interns
for the summer that have come directly from Carthage College and have just been an
amazing, amazing workforce for the organization already. In terms of the partnership
further, it includes personnel, it includes help and insight on the P.R. and marketing side
of things, it involves resources, it involves sounding boards between the arts community
within the city itself, and it definitely makes a statement on both of our sides that we
trust and believe in the impact of each other’s organizations and are very proud to see
what that collaboration and that partnership will be able to develop into.
Very good. So what do people need to know as we finish up today? What’s most
important? Probably among other things, the immediacy of this upcoming gala.
Yes, exactly. So what I would suggest doing is just giving yourself a couple of minutes
and checking our newly designed website. It’s very accessible, it has all the information
that you’ll need, it’s a very simple webpage, just www.kenoshasymphony.org, and
everything you’ll need from that point forward will be online. If you have any questions, if
you have any comments, if you have any concerns, please feel free to contact me
personally at admin@kenoshasymphony.org or call the Symphony office at 262-6549080. One thing that I do just want to mention, just quickly, is that the Kenosha
Symphony itself is a nonprofit organization, we are a 501(c)3 organization, and so all
contributions and donations are 100% tax deductible. We definitely rely heavily and are
very thankful for the support of our donors and patrons.
Very good.
Thank you.
So lots of things to mark your calendar for including the Instrument Petting Zoo at
HarborMarket on July 26th, this exciting Gala on August 22nd, and remember the ticket
price goes up a little once [August] 1st hits, so if that’s something you can commit
yourself to before August 1st, you’ll have a little cheaper ticket to purchase. [Also], the
free concert at Pennoyer Park on September 5th and then opening night for the 75th
Anniversary celebratory season of the Kenosha Symphony with Beethoven’s 9 th
Symphony on the 18th of October. Executive Director Sarah Gorke, you have a lot to be
excited about, and have already, of course, generated plenty of excitement in the
community with what’s already been planned so we wish you and the Symphony the
very, very best.
Thank you very much.
I’m Gregory Berg.